Warning

Housing Crisis to End This Year - 2012

Capital Economics expects the housing crisis to end this year, according to a report released Tuesday. One of the reasons: loosening credit.

The analytics firm notes the average credit score required to attain a mortgage loan is 700. While this is higher than scores required prior to the crisis, it is constant with requirements one year ago.

Additionally, a Fed Senior Loan Officer Survey found credit requirements in the fourth quarter were consistent with the past three quarters. However, other market indicators point not just to a stabilization of mortgage lending standards, but also a loosening of credit availability.Banks are now lending amounts up to 3.5 times borrower earnings. This is up from a low during the crisis of 3.2 times borrower earnings. Banks are also loosening loan-to-value ratios (LTV), which Capital Economics denotes "the clearest sign yet of an improvement in mortgage credit conditions." In contrast to a low of 74 percent reached in mid-2010, banks are now lending at 82 percent LTV.

While credit conditions may have loosened slightly, some potential homebuyers are still struggling with credit requirements. In fact, Capital Economics points out that in November 8 percent of contract cancellations were the result of a potential buyer not qualifying for a loan.

Mortgage News Daily

Existing home sales put an end to two straight months of gains , retreating in April on both a monthly and annual basis. The National Association of Realtors® said the sales of single-family homes, townhouses, condos, and cooperative apartments dropped by 2.5 percent from March's estimate of 5.60 million to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.46 million. That put sales at a 1.4 percent deficit when compared to April 2017. It was the second straight month that sales have lagged on an annual basis. Economists polled by Econoday were not looking for greatly improved numbers but results even missed that target . Estimates ranged from 5.48 million to 5.64 million. The consensus was for no change from the March 5.60 million number. Single-family home sales were down by 3.0 percent to a seasonally...(read more)

Home prices in the first quarter of 2018 were 1.7 percent higher than at the end of the fourth quarter of last year. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said its Housing Price Index (HPI) gained 6.9 percent when compared to the level at the end of March 2017. On a monthly basis prices were 0.1 percent higher than in February. The month over month rate of increase in March was significantly higher than the 0.6 percent gain from January to February, but the annual increase slowed compared to the previous month. The rate of appreciation from February 2017 to February 2018 was 7.2 percent. "Home prices continue to rise across the U.S. but there are signs of tapering ," said Dr. William Doerner, FHFA's Senior Economist. "Since housing markets began to rebound in 2012, house price appreciation has...(read more)

One short week after hitting the worst levels in nearly 7 years there's suddenly a semblance of hope again for bonds. It was one thing to see last Friday's correction--which merely stopped the most abject bleeding--or the first 2 days of indecisive stability this week. It was another thing to see an unmistakably strong rally yesterday followed by even stronger levels today. The critical development over the past 48 hours for US bond markets has been the break below the 3.05% floor that had blocked progress since last Friday. If we wanted to be extra cautious about where we set our technical levels, we could use the previous 4-year ceiling of 3.04% and reserve judgment until bonds broke and closed below. With yields starting out the day well under 3.0%, it seems like there's not...(read more)

The conference this week? I attended various presentations dealing with housing finance and the economy in general. Even in the face of rising rates, the outlook on the housing market is bullish for prices – but with continued inventory problems. Labor shortages and environmental provisions/local zoning are expected to continue to contribute to extended times to complete the construction of new homes. Now that we are a decade past the financial crisis, we are seeing increased non-agency mortgage lending, as reflected through securitizations, and it is expected that the non-QM market will continue its expansion but still small on a relative basis to QM. Demographic factors play a dominant role in the housing market as millennials embrace homeownership, just as we knew they would. Given...(read more)

Fannie Mae is backing down slightly on its economic forecast for the remainder of 2018. The first quarter GDP growth of 2.3 percent was the slowest in a year , down from 2.9 percent a year earlier. The company's economists, led by vice president and chief economists Doug Duncan, say they expect growth to pick up later in the year but the economic boost from last December's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and this February's Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, will fade next year and the labor market will tighten more than previously thought. The earlier full-year 2018 forecast remains at 2.7 percent, but the company is lowering its projections for 2019 by two-tenths to 2.3 percent. They see substantial downside risks to their forecast , especially the rising price of oil. Crude prices have risen by about...(read more)

Loan performance continued to improve in April, even though Black Knight says mortgage delinquencies have a historic pattern of increasing during that month. The overall delinquency rate declined 1.6 percent from March to a national rate of 3.67 percent. That rate is down by 10.17 percent from the previous April. Black Knight notes, in its "first look" at the month's loan performance data, that not only did April's improvement buck a trend that has affected the month's numbers 85 percent of the time, it also ended seven months of annual increases, behavior that started with last fall's hurricanes. Areas in Texas, Florida, and Georgia where Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit drove the improving numbers. However, over 90,000 mortgages on homes impacted by the storms are still seriously delinquent...(read more)

Bonds surged to significantly stronger levels in the presence of the Fed Minutes today. Any time we see strong gains on a day with a Fed release, chances are the Fed is behind the move. Incidentally, that's NOT the case today (spoiler in the headline, I know). So how did Europe trump the Fed in terms of bond market impact? In short, this is all about Italian political drama. The two anti-Eurozone parties who are forming a coalition government in Italy are waiting for confirmation of their staffing choices from the Italian prime minister (yeah... things work differently over there). One of the picks had previously referred to the Eurozone as a noose around Italy's neck. It's not overboard to consider this political regime as potentially pushing Italy away from the Euro. That's...(read more)

This week hadn't been too traumatic for mortgage rates through yesterday afternoon, but neither had it been positive in any noticeable way. That changed today as rates fell abruptly to the lowest levels since last Monday. Granted, at the time, last Monday's rates were still pretty close to the worst in 7 years, but the point is that we've managed to find our way back from the even higher rates that followed. Help came chiefly from European political developments where Italy is a day or two away from confirming a government that could end up pushing the country out of the Eurozone . Even though that's far from guaranteed, the mere risk of such a thing is enough to drive investors toward safer haven bonds like those issued by Germany or the US. In general, excess demand for bonds means rates...(read more)

The House of Representatives passed a sweeping overhaul of regulations included in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on Tuesday. Senate Bill 2155, which passed the upper house in March, received a 258 to 259 vote in the House. It now goes to the White House for what is expected to be certain presidential approval. The bill did not go nearly as far as the House had hoped in rolling back Dodd-Frank. Leadership agreed to vote on the compromise bill negotiated in the Senate between Republicans and Democrats only after a promise of a vote latter this year on other changes House members, especially House Financial Services Chair Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) were demanding. According to Bloomberg, the legislation gives smaller banks relief from post-crisis rules that they...(read more)

New home sales dipped in April, a reversal that was expected by many analysts . The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development said sales of newly constructed homes during the month were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 662,000 units. This is 1.5 percent below the revised rate of 672,000 units in March. The March estimate was revised down from 694,000 units, erasing much of that month's reported 4 percent gain. Despite the downturn, sales are now running 11.6 percent above the April 2017 estimate of 593,000 sales. In March the year-over-year gain was reported at 8.8 percent. Analysts polled by Econoday had expected sales to be in the 650,000 to 692,000 range. The consensus was 677,000. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis there were 64,000 new homes sold in...(read more)